Living on the edge in the North Pacific....with two kids, two dogs, a manic husband and a wife who tries to keep up with the pack.

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Saturday, September 29, 2012

Sun, Snow & a Filled Proxy Tag

This morning I went deer hunting alone to fill a proxy tag. I started hiking up the mountain at dawn. There was a hard frost and down low everything was white with frost. By the time I got up high the sun was coming up and bathing everything in gorgeous dawn sunlight. And there were deer everywhere. I even passed on a spike.

I noticed that all the deer were on the move from the sunny south slopes on over the top and to the north side. I thought it was weird that they were leaving the warm slopes for the cold north side. And then suddenly - seemingly like someone hit the light switch - the sun went away, the wind picked up, and it got cold. All the deer had been anticipating the weather and moving to the lee side. And just like that - no more deer.

I batted around a bit and did not see a single deer for almost 2 hours. I decided to try one last bowl on the North side, but basically I had given up. And there, in the middle of the bowl, was a small buck. Funnily enough I have shot a deer before from that same spot another time when I had also given up.

I got to the deer and it started to snow. And then it started to thunder and lightning! This rarely happens in Kodiak and it was very weird to be in a full on snow squall and have thunder and lightning at the same time. By the time I quit cleaning the deer it looked like below, and it did not stop snowing until I had almost reached the car an hour and a half later. Patrick